Itinerant Air-Cooled

The greenhouse effect, i.e., CO2 lets higher frequencies pass though while blocking infrared, is a simple, irrefutable fact. That CO2 levels have risen due to man's burning of fossil fuels is quite well established. So it's a reasonable hypothesis that man's burning of fossil fuels is causing the climate to warm, and well worth studying.

What bothers me is the complete group-think, bordering on hysteria. Any academician who dares to raise questions that challenge the current orthodoxy is pilloried and doesn't get invited to the department cocktail parties. All funding from the government and environmental groups is targeted at finding evidence that proves the hypothesis. Any evidence that comes from groups that have another agenda is dismissed a priori. Just because Exxon funded an expedition doesn't mean the findings are false.

Here's an example.



A few years ago, the Polar Bears were drowning because of the loss of Arctic sea ice. Now that the sea ice is back to normal, not a word is mentioned. Just like back then, when the Antarctic ice was growing, the media ignored it. Now that Antarctic ice is retreating, it's breathless headlines.

I'm old enough to remember the '70s, when the climate was cooling, and everyone feared a new Ice Age (100 years in to the increase in CO2 levels).

Being A Skeptic can be lonely sometimes.

Climate change does see fluctuations, pockets of excess balanced with pockets of decreases. There are scientific explanations that account for this in the overall trends. Excesses at this point are often now the norms of years past, rather than truly excessive. Suspicion of the results of corporate funded studies are generally based on the history of those studies and their flaws of evidence exclusion to arrive at corporate friendly results. Why would they suddenly be ethical? There is a similar model that parallels this mindset that tobacco companies employed for years contesting the harmful health effects of smoking. I think the Heartland Institute's current billboard campaign suggesting those who don't question climate change are in good company with Manson, Bin Laden, etc. is telling of the desperation the powered are to foment skepticism.


neal

hippiewannabe wrote: What bothers me is the complete group-think, bordering on hysteria.
Now that the sea ice is back to normal, not a word is mentioned.
Being A Skeptic can be lonely sometimes.

Those of us who consider ourselves "thoughtful" do not get too excited by the temperature outside today, or by yearly variations. But we do look at long-term trends. Nature does respond to long-term trends, and daffodils are irrefutably blooming two weeks earlier in each of the latitudes where they live.
The long-term thickness of the sea ice is indeed diminishing, and nations and insurance companies alike are looking at the data far more carefully than the hysterics on both sides, and it appears that the expectation of an open northwest passage is accepted as Coming Soon.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel


Green ‘drivel’

The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria

Short version, Global warming is not near the calamity as was initially thought.

That article had many words and phrases that lead me to think that it has a pretty specific viewpoint.

U.S. Geological Survey research shows that sea levels are rising much faster between North Carolina and Massachusetts than anywhere else in the world. The news comes less than two weeks after North Carolina’s Senate passed a bill banning state agencies from reporting sea level predictions. Based on records covering 1950 through 2009, researchers found that the sea-level rise along the northern half of the eastern seaboard is three to four times faster than the global rate. Separately, a National Research Council study predicted that sea levels along the California coast will rise up to a foot in 20 years, increasing the risk of flooding and storm damage. Nature, Los Angeles Times

Colin

ruckman101 wrote:. I think the Heartland Institute's current billboard campaign suggesting those who don't question climate change are in good company with Manson, Bin Laden, etc. is telling of the desperation the powered are to foment skepticism.


neal

Holy shiat, very telling indeed!

V is for Vendetta


1984

Farienheit 451

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Hold the phone. hippiewannabe: I believe you might be misinterpreting the graph you posted when you wrote, "A few years ago, the Polar Bears were drowning because of the loss of Arctic sea ice. Now that the sea ice is back to normal, not a word is mentioned. Just like back then, when the Antarctic ice was growing, the media ignored it. Now that Antarctic ice is retreating, it's breathless headlines."

The graph you show demonstrates that in 2007 and 2012 (the dashed and blue lines, respectively) the amount of sea ice in the Arctic ocean was (is) more than 2 standard deviations below the average from 1979-2000. This data confirms that [s]polar bears are drowning[/s] summer-time sea ice coverage in the Arctic continues to be below the average since record keeping began.

As for the Antarctic ice... there are two sheets, the East Antarctic sheet and the West Antarctic sheet. One is losing mass, the other gaining it. They about cancel out, but it should be noted that both behaviors are expected with a warming world: a warmer atmosphere means more moisture can be stored in the air (think of seeing your breath during a cold day), which leads to greater snowfall in the polar regions, which can mean an increase in the depth of snow and the mass of ice. Warming water will result in more iceburg calving, reducing the size of the ice cap. We are seeing both happen: the ice caps are reducing their extent (becoming smaller in the x-y direction) and increasing their depth (increasing in the z direction). The East sheet is losing a lot of mass to calving, and the West sheet appears to be pretty stable and has increased in mass over the last 20 years.

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting your post. It's possible!

Boy do I need garden seed. And water. Not an encouraging data plot.

neal

tvargs wrote:Hold the phone. hippiewannabe: I believe you might be misinterpreting the graph you posted when you wrote, "A few years ago, the Polar Bears were drowning because of the loss of Arctic sea ice. Now that the sea ice is back to normal, not a word is mentioned. Just like back then, when the Antarctic ice was growing, the media ignored it. Now that Antarctic ice is retreating, it's breathless headlines."

The graph you show demonstrates that in 2007 and 2012 (the dashed and blue lines, respectively) the amount of sea ice in the Arctic ocean was (is) more than 2 standard deviations below the average from 1979-2000. This data confirms that [s]polar bears are drowning[/s] summer-time sea ice coverage in the Arctic continues to be below the average since record keeping began.

As for the Antarctic ice... there are two sheets, the East Antarctic sheet and the West Antarctic sheet. One is losing mass, the other gaining it. They about cancel out, but it should be noted that both behaviors are expected with a warming world: a warmer atmosphere means more moisture can be stored in the air (think of seeing your breath during a cold day), which leads to greater snowfall in the polar regions, which can mean an increase in the depth of snow and the mass of ice. Warming water will result in more iceburg calving, reducing the size of the ice cap. We are seeing both happen: the ice caps are reducing their extent (becoming smaller in the x-y direction) and increasing their depth (increasing in the z direction). The East sheet is losing a lot of mass to calving, and the West sheet appears to be pretty stable and has increased in mass over the last 20 years.

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting your post. It's possible!

For clarification, north pole and south pole are a world apart.
And it only takes one season of catastrophic changes to kill.

I've got a conspiracy theory for ya,
They added masculine names to hurricanes so when
the next catastrophic event happen it won't be a repeat, it a different storm in the mindset.
Having a Katrina hit again would catastrophic to propaganda.

Oh oh...my globes are warming....

RIP Professor Schneider, this talk is a bit dated but a very good primer for the following videos.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=mmlHbt5j ... re=related

Boomer guilt?,
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=re ... 1HpkCiOaiI

Provocative gen x'er?
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=A7ktYbVw ... 7ktYbVwr90

Navy spokesman?,
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=re ... udNMqRmqV8

http://flood.firetree.net/

http://downloads.globalchange.gov/usimp ... report.pdf

Spezialist wrote: RIP Professor Schneider,
Boomer guilt?,
Provocative gen x'er?
Navy spokesman?

Will get to this . . .
Colin

Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks

Anonymous billionaires donated $120m to more than 100 anti-climate groups working to discredit climate change science

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ks-network